Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Self Award chart :) / Bounty Hunters

Sisterly love....hmmmm..

I am a lister. I LOVE lists. I have lists of lists and they are found all over the place. My favourite is my "to Do" list. I often write things I have already done just so I can cross it off :) Yes I may be slightly warped, but with my lists I feel slightly more like I have things all under control.....

I thought this creative organisational tool ( read :obsession) only extended to me. Unfortunately it seems its either a gene or something my eldest has picked up.

On the weekend we had an unfortunate " incident" in which I was doing something mundane like the washing when Amahli screamed. I ran in to find Amahli holding her head and Jumeirah in the corner saying "Please dont be too mad mum but she was annoying me so I threw her" ( yes you read it right she THREW her. Into the wall. I dont know how really as she weighs a tonne but needless to say I was pretty mad)

After many tears ( whilst Amahli patted our backs and said over and over " ok, ok) Jumeirah was sent to a time out to think about how she could make it up to her for being mean. She set to task on a secret list ( I havent actually seen it yet) of things that would be nice for her. The first one was to chase her around the house ( amahlis favourite game). Once done, she trotted off for a "tick". Oh dear....

Later on, a chart appeared on the fridge and it was explained to me that she had designed her own Award Chart. The idea is that when she feels she has done something right, she can reward herself for it. I loved this idea, not only is it giving her a chance to build her own Self Esteem, but she's doing it by herself for herself which will help her to make accountable for her own actions. I love it!

Yesterday, with hubbin at home, I prepared something fun for them to do together. In the morning, Jumeirah and I designed a treasure map from the letterbox to out the back.

I drew the map and she drew the place they would see along the way. We also painted it in tea leaves and burnt the esges to amke it look authentic. It would lead to REAL TREASURE! I hid the map in the letter box and casually asked him to go check it..

He raced up to daddy who quickly got involved in reading the map and trying to decifer the directions... ( ok yep I'll take the stereotypical male response and say females suck at directions cos I really do) and began to hunt through the house.

It wasnt long before they were outside and sifting through the sand for COINS! Jared found a few and was done with that, but Amahli had a ball finding all the coins and then hiding them again :)

Treasure Hunts are a fun family thing to do, pretty easy to set up but impossible to resist :) It wont take long before you are all hunting for Treasure :)